Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now the Christmas season is officially in full swing. I have mixed feelings about this time of year. I am looking forward to seeing my daughter experience the holidays, and I can’t wait until Christmas morning to see her open her presents. She sort of understood Christmas last year, but this year she is excited. She loves our Christmas tree and even picked out her very own ornament to hang on a branch. It’s a Barbie in a hideous pink dress, and she will kneel down in front of it and gaze at it lovingly, whispering sweet nothings into its plastic ears.

I am excited for Christmas, and I am also dreading the sad milestones that Christmas brings. Today marked what I guess is the first milestone; today would have been my mother’s 61st birthday. It also marks 1 year since I saw my mom for the last time before she went into the hospital. The visit was strange. In hindsight I understand a little better. At the time I thought she was just on heavy pain pills (which she may have been) but I realize now just how sick she was. On her birthday last year, she had little less than a month to live.

I think that I’ve been dealing with the anxiety I’m feeling over the anniversary of her death in subtle, almost subconscious ways. I’ve been feeling very self-conscious and sensitive and also easily annoyed. I have been feeling easily left out and just kind of glum on and off. It’s been a while since I’ve felt much of anything regarding my mom’s death, so it was hard to recognize the source of these feelings at first.

I guess I just need to take the good with the bad and accept my emotions and feelings as they come.

I just got unexpectedly emotional, and not because of my miscarriage, seeing a pregnant woman, a baby, or the fact that I’m not pregnant.

No, it’s because my friend Michelle is leaving.

Michelle is my long-time friend Ryan’s girlfriend (now fiancee). She and I started going to the gym together this past February. We barely knew each other at all then. From February to May, we saw each other at least three times a week, quite often it was more than that. We’d get coffee, lunch, dinner, etc. We’ve talked about EVERYTHING. She’s asked me to be a bridesmaid, which I accepted without hesitation.

Well, she’s going to school in Georgia, which has become too much of a commute (we live in Tennessee.. At the very bottom of Tennessee, but still), and has decided to move back in with her parents for the next semester. She’s going to be about 45 minutes-one hour away. She’s only going to be gone until January (her wedding) and then she’s moving back here.

I texted her just now to see when she’s leaving, and told her I wanted to hang out with her before she went. She asked me if I’d like to go dress shopping with her again this Saturday, and I said I’d love to. Then, all of a sudden, I realized how much I’m going to miss her. I know she’s not going away forever, and it’s not very far away… But I’m still going to miss her, a lot. I think that she and I have become a lot closer than I realized. At least, I feel like we have. I’m really bad with expressing my feelings, so I need to make sure that I tell her this.